japanese food, anyone...?

[amar]

[emmline]

Yeah. They could have used a translator with better multi-cultural comprehension.

[Paul]

That reminds me of the "fish stomach soup" that got served one night at one of our Chinese Business Association functions.

[izzarina]

what in the world does "acid food" mean???

[missy]

Noah says it's written in Kangi, and he only reads hiragana and katagana, but he will take the picture in for his teacher to translate.

Missy

[MikeyLikesIt]

Acid food, yummy!!!

[Darwin]

First, the signs are in Chinese, not Japanese. Other than the fact that they were apparently shown on Engrish.com, is there any other reason for thinking that they are Japanese? Amar, do you have the link?

what in the world does "acid food" mean???

It's literally "sour vegetable dumplings". I assume the best translation would be "pickled vegetable dumplings". If you've had sushi, you've surely had several kinds of pickled vegetables.

The other dish is literally "crab yellow soup dumplings. I think that "crab yellow" is something like "crab roe".

Somebody needs a new dictionary. (And I don't have access to mine, yet.)

[izzarina]

Thank you Darwin...now it makes more sense to me. And yes, based on your description, I have had "acid food" before

[MikeyLikesIt]

Mmmm....acid food, still yummy.

[Tony]

OK... here's my take on the item on the right as translated by my girlfriend.

1) it's Chinese
2) It says: pickled (sour) vegetable roll.
The recipe for that dish often has vinegar in it, hence 'acid food'

[izzarina]

Mmmm....acid food, still yummy.

[DCrom]

On various business trips to Japan, I've sometimes ended up having dinner with people who wanted to show off local delicacies (or test the gaijin). I've learned that sometimes the best thing to do is try everything, and don't ask what it is until after you know what it tastes like.

There have been a few things I'd be just as happy if I never sample again, but I've enjoyed quite a few things I'd have probably never ordered on my own.

[LisaD]

Crab guts ...... mmmmmmm!

I grew up in south-east Asia. We ate lots of interesting things.

[Nanohedron]

Onoe of my favorite down-home Japanese dishes when I was in Akita Prefecture was a spicy stew called motsunikomi. The meat part, I found out, was chicken guts. Didn't stop me from ordering it afterward! Yum.

[Eldarion]

Yep its Chinese. This type of steamed dumplings are a speciality in the north (of China), though usually containing less luxurious ingredients than crab roe, like minced pork, chives, chopped bok choi etc. Literally it means "crab roe soup dumpling". "Soup dumplings" or tang bao, are so-named because apart from containing the meat fillings, the thin dough-skin pouch also contain savoury meat stock within - about a tablespoon of it. When you bite into one of these, the stock juices flow out adding to the texture and the flavour of the dumpling.

"Acid food" or more correctly preserved vegetable rolls are also a northern speciality. Due to the cold weather up north, you get a lot of preserved meats (usually seasoned, dried, and coated with wax) and vegetables (in salt and vinegar). I believe the confusion occurs because the Chinese word for "sour" is also the same as that for "acid".

I wonder if whole thing was done as a practical joke because there was no way one would confuse roe with "ovary and digestive glands of a crab" even with a Chinese-English dictionary...